I have gone in and out of keeping a journal for most of my life. I started my first diary when I was about seven. In it I wrote about my days spent with my cousins and best friend. It’s funny to see the effort I put into my penmanship from time to time. I do that same thing in my current journal!

My next diary was one with a lock. It was a Nancy Drew Diary and I LOVED it. As a teen, my journals took quite a beating. The ups and downs of high school, wanting to fit and finding out that maybe I didn’t. Crushes and heartbreak. Nothing new for many of us, I suspect. All of it poured into a journal I hid in a different spot every few days.

Fast forward to those first few months of motherhood and my journal took on quite a different look. Counting poops, time of nursing and Doctor’s appointments. As our family grew, we began menu planning. We keep the plan and the grocery list in one book. You can reach for a past journal for dinner inspiration or look back to what we did for Alistair’s 5th birthday or what we did for Thanksgiving three years ago. It’s all there.

Do you Bullet Journal? (http://villagequire.ca/events) This is the latest in agenda planning and to-do lists. There are a lot of die-hard bullet journalers out there and I am one of them.

Lately, I’ve been chattering to my kids about the benefits of keeping a journal. I have definitely hit some resistance from them. But I am going to persevere.

I’ll be bringing home a selection notebooks. All four of us (the Dad included) will spend ten minutes writing down two positive things that happened each day.

I keep hearing about the stress kids are under. My kids are just 11 and 8 but I can see how the day can weigh them down. And I want to help them with that. I think if the four of us put aside ten minutes each day to write down a couple of positive things that happened that day, our days will be brighter, lighter and maybe we’ll find ourselves taking the challenge of our days with a bit more grace.